sexta-feira, 2 de abril de 2010

Al Bartlett interview from Blind Spot documentary

BLIND SPOT is a documentary that investigates the causes behind the reasons for the current crisis we find ourselves in. It establishes the inextricable link between the energy we use, the way we run our economy and the effect it has had on our environment. It takes as a starting point the inevitable energy depletion scenario know as Peak Oil to inform us that by whatever measure of greed, wishful thinking, neglect or ignorance, we are at a crossroad which offers two paths, both with dire consequences. If we continue to burn fossil fuels our ecology will collapse and if we don’t, our economy will. Either path we choose to take will have a profound effect on our way of life.

"Blind Spot is a fascinating documentary, it draws on some of the most impressive scientific minds to warn us about the dangers of our dependence on oil and educate us about our role in saving the earth and the lives of our children. I was transfixed by it."
-Howard Zinn

“If we lived in a rational world, inhabited by rational human beings, viewing Blind Spot would be a mandatory prerequisite to taking any federal oath of office in the coming year. Were that to happen, there might be hope that the USA would resume world leadership and our renewed influence would be used to redirect ourselves and the world away from the unsustainable path upon which we plummeted along throughout the 20th century, mistakenly regarding the adventure as unmitigated progress. “
-William Catton Jr., author of Overshoot

“Blind Spot rides currents of beauty and sadness, ultimately landing with a catharsis that comes when truth has been told.”
-Jason Bradford, founder of Willits Economic Localization

“The next few decades aren’t going to look like the last few-not at all. And the sooner we come to terms with that, the better. This documentary is a good place to start.”
-Bill McKibben, author of “The End of Nature”

Noam Chomsky on Peak Oil:
“Doubtless Peak Oil will come, the timing is a matter of debate. However we may be better off it it is not too long delayed, because it will accelerate what must be done to prevent environmental catastrophe.”

"How the Media Frames Political Issues" by Scott London

In The Emergence of American Political Issues (1977) McCombs and Shaw state that the most important effect of the mass media is "its ability to mentally order and organize our world for us. In short, the mass media may not be successful in telling us what to think, but they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about."[13] The presidential observer Theodore White corroborates this conclusion in The Making of a President (1972):

The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion; and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It determines what people will talk and think about - an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.[14]

McCombs and Shaw also note that the media's tendency to structure voters' perceptions of political reality in effect constitutes a bias: "to a considerable degree the art of politics in a democracy is the art of determining which issue dimensions are of major interest to the public or can be made salient in order to win public support."[15]http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/frames.html